Black becomes you..

  "Where am I?"

  "You're here."

  "But where is here?"

  "Can't you see?"

  "Well, yeah, I see, but where is it."

  "It's one point in this vast area upon which you stand."

  "Am I near a town?"

  "Town?  What is town?"

  "You know a place where a bunch of people live all together."

  "We all live apart.  There is no way we could live together.  Only one person can occupy a space at one time.  The closest we come to occupying the same space is if we consent to coupling and eve then it is only a small portion of the two of us occupying the same space at the same time."

  "That's not what I'm talking about.  Who the hell are you?"

  "Just a member of the vast spaces you see."

  "I can see we're getting nowhere here.  How did I come to this place?"

  "You were spit out of a great grey wall of wind.  We saw you vaguely through the whipping winds rising rapidly  until you were tossed upward and out.  You happened to land here on this hard surface."

  "How long?"

  "Coupla glics I think."

  "Huh?"

  "Don't you have glics?  From the start of what I was saying to the ned of it was a clad.  So many clads equal a glic."

  "Oh, we call them minutes and hours."

  "Ah, well, I suppose you were there asleep for 24....hours?  Glics."

  "This happen much? Your finding people thrown from a great wind tunnel?"

  "Never in my lifetime, but our grandparents told us of a little girl who arrived in her ship.  It crash landed on one of our most feared witches.  Her feet shrank and the girl was given her ruby slippers by Glenda."

  "Dorothy?  Are you talking about Dorothy?"
  "Yes, I do believe that's what gramps called her.  Dorothy.  Yes, it was Dorothy."

  "So this is the Munchkin town she started her journey along the yellow brick road?"

  "Yes, you have heard of us?"

  "Uh, yes."

  "Do you wish us to sing to you and offer you lollipops from the lollypop guild and such?"

   "No, that’s not necessary."

  "Well, how about my sister.  She very good and cheap."

  "What?  What are you talking about?"

  For the first time I looked around.  My eyes focused on a rundown village of thatched cottages with broken windows.  The colors had all turned into shades of grey.  The brilliant yellow brick road of the movie had turned to an ash covered yellow tinged deep grey.  There were no flowers nor trees filled with fruit.  It looked as if the life had been sucked out of the entire area.  It reminded me of the pictures of the old Soviet Union or East Germany. 

  "I'm talking about money.  I need money as does every soul here.  It just so happens I have a saleable commodity, my sister.  She's the best in the area and will give you a wonderful time for any cash you might have with you as long as it is gold.  You do have gold on you don't you?"

  "Gold?   Of course not.  We carry paper or plastic."

  "Paper?  Worthless except to an artist.  Plastic?  What is this plastic?"

  "Plastic is the gold of the future which is now where I come from."

  "If you don't have gold then we will have to take you into custody.  You can work off your debt to us."

  "What debt?"

  "We allowed you to sleep here for 24 glics.  You think this is something you can have for free?"

  Hundreds of little folk were venturing out from behind bushes and dead trees.  The doors on the shacks were sliding sideways bringing into view hundreds more from the shadows of the wrecked shelters.  I was reminded of all the movies written about the "Living Dead."  These mini people shuffled along with fixed stares and fixed smiles filled with teeth filed to points.  Everywhere I turned they were slowly inching towards me.  The little man who had held me in conversation grabbed me.  He held my arm in a tiny vise-like grip.  I tried pulling away and making a break for it but his grip was solid.

  I came out of my jacket turning to run when the first of the advancing zombie-like munchkins reached for me.  They latched on wherever they could grip. Tiny hands found my arms and legs.  I saw the dusky yellow teeth bared and the maws behind widen as they moved in for the flesh and blood on my skeleton.

  "NO!" I screamed.  I kicked and squirmed as the foul smelling little munchkins moved in for the kill    With all my might I began to throw the hideous little creatures in all directions.  I kicked and squirmed as the foul smelling little munchkins moved in for the kill.  I knew I couldn't hold out much longer and then...

  They began to move away with their forearms covering their eyes.  I looked in the direction from which they hid their eyes.  It was a bright light which seemed to grow larger.  No, it wasn't just growing larger it was approaching me from the sky.  It was a bubble of rich golden color.  The entire area was bathed in the golden warmth beaming from the ever nearing bubble.  There was something inside.  It was a woman with a stick in her right hand and a crown on her head.  She smiled behind the round enclosing wall.  Her eyes twinkled as she held my gaze.

  The golden globe touched the ground and disappeared as she stepped lightly to the yellow-tinged grey brick road.  Her foot step blanched the brick upon which she tread.  It turned a rich warm beautiful yellow.  Each advancing step widened the technicolor effect.  She continued to smile as she approached and the sea of golden bricks advanced along her path.  Color seemed to spring out of every brick, rock, bush and tree.  The ramshackle shacks lifted themselves into red and blue and green cottages roofed with fresh yellow thatched thickness.  Each foot step brought richer and deeper color to this drab grey little village.

  I smiled at this beautiful creature as she brought warmth and life to every square inch of the surrounding area.  She never spoke.  I stood transfixed in her smile and clear blue eyes.  I was the only one who stood in the center of this land of beauty and promise unfolding with each step she took.  The little monster munchkins were at a distance and bowing before the golden haired beauty who continued to come closer to me.  From the corner of my eyes I saw the little people's clothes flash into color and their skin turn rosy pink.  The pain and suffering in their eyes was gone and now filled with...fear?

  I looked at the advancing woman who would be face to face any second.  I was overwhelmed by her beauty and rooted to the spot.  My senses were near exhaustion from the transformation of this little piece of real estate from a dead and buried parish into a splendiferous orgy of color and new surged life.

  She smiled at me and I knew I was the reason for it all.  She took my hand and pulled me to her.  I surrendered to her. All I wanted was to be swallowed by her warmth.  She plastered her ravishing body to mine. 

And in a flash the illusion disappeared.  Not the beauty that had come to rest upon the countryside.  No.  It was the illusion that she was Glenda the good witch of the east.  I knew at once that this was the cold calculating evil sister of the witch killed eons ago by a house falling from the sky.  The warmth of the illusion left as her teeth sunk into my neck and the warmth of life was sucked from me.  She never spoke a word but I could hear chatter in the background growing ever fainter.

  "We held him long enough for you, didn't we?  We can have another ten earth turns of color and warmth and plenty can't we?  I know we almost feasted upon him but you took so long getting here.  I couldn't control them."

  "Another 10 earth turns, Munchkins.  Go!  Go, start your businesses again.  The time of plenty has returned.   And may the one who overlooks our lives be blessed and thanked for the wind-walls that bring such as this to our land for sacrifice."

  My world dimmed into black.